Try doing something simultaneously to watching anime so if the anime is not interesting you focus on said thing. For example I eat my tea while watching anime. Sometimes it is worth sticking with an anime, even if the first few episodes don't catch you straight away For Example Steins Gate or Log Horizon.

if i stopped after the first 3 episodes of shows that didnt catch my attention i would of never watched code geass, Clannad, last exile, and many others and that would of been a shame as they were all amazing shows in the end. i like to give a show atleast 7 episodes before i draw my conclusion if its worth finishing or not.

Call me a bit of a sheep, but I'm big on word of mouth. The Gintama fans here (to use a favorite example) invariably say, "Stay with it past the first nine episodes! At least do that!" I did. And now I love it, though I actually thought it was pretty funny from the start.

Its another name for some types of Visual Novels. The differences are often semantic, as the term Sound Novel was the original name for the the type of game and Visual Novel was a term coined by people other than the ones to originally use the SN term to avoid copyright issues at the onset apparently, although I don't think that's really an issue anymore. For what its worth the Umineko Sound Novels are unlike most visual novels in that there are no choices to be made, with the exception of the final arc, (which still don't change what actually happens in the story, being more like an interaction between the author and you than the typical choose your own adventure fare of most VN's), the games are only games in the same sense that mystery novels are also considered games. It reads like a novel series, just with incredible music accompaniment, and graphics of course. It even has voice acting in the PS3 port.

I used to give it 2 eps before deciding on a show. I came to realise this was impractical so I started doing 4-5. Nearly gave up Haruhi Suzumiya but thankfully I held off on the choice before i saw the ep that changed all that.

As for longer/on going shows, I tend to marathon them in long stretches. I then postpone it at the end of an arc/certain plot point. I break the show up by watching other shows, that way i don't feel bored/repetitive with the same show for the whole month. Makes it more enjoyable with marathoning it, especially the longer going stories.

I've been thinking lately that you really shouldn't have to suffer watching a show for the good part to come up. Sure some shows leave you as if you were dropped into the middle of a crop field in Kansas, but I feel that shows that intentionally leave the viewer in the dark are poorly written, rather than slowly developing. Its every author's (or producer's) JOB to feed you an interesting story worth your time. I don't really bad about dropping shows anymore even if I might miss a good show or two. As part of an anime watcher's hobby, I feel spending your time on anime that you hated watching halfway through is wasted time. The only exception to this is the mystery/sci-fi I think.